The writing has been on the wall for smartwatches ever since Cupertino chose to focus on sports and fitness features for Apple Watch Series 2. Smartwatch sales are plummeting, and fitness seems to be the only profitable area remaining in the wearables sector.

More evidence of this trend emerged this week, with smartwatch trailblazer Pebble reportedly being acquired by fitness wearables specialist Fitbit. We might very well be witnessing the demise of the smartwatch as we know it.

So how did we get here? Is Apple Watch really only fit for fitness, or could it still one day fulfill its destiny and become a true wrist-based computing platform?

Before there was an Apple Watch, Snake Plissken had a kind of smartwatch that tracked his health. He knew that if his watch hit zero before he could rescue the President of the United States, he could count on the explosives injected into his neck to go off.

But that’s not the point. What matters is that the countdown clock attached to actor Kurt Russell for the 1981 classic Escape from New York would make a really stylish smartwatch today. And you can now own one and wear it as if your president’s life depended on it.

Apple’s website confirms that Apple Watch Nike+ will become available October 28. Customers can preorder all four models of the device now, with prices starting at $369 for the 38mm variant and $399 for the 42mm.

Wearable shipments fell for the first time ever last quarter, and it’s all thanks to declining interest in an aging Apple Watch. Smartwatch vendors shipped just 3.5 million units during Q2 2016, down from 5.1 million units over the same quarter last year.

The Apple Watch is the hottest smartwatch on the market. And it looks like it is going to stay that way for a while.

A report by International Data Corporation says the Apple Watch will lead a rapidly growing wearables market through at least 2019 as a skeptical public gets won over by more sophisticated second- and third-generation devices.

IDC projects Apple to sell 13 million watches this year for a little more than 61 percent of the market share. The number of Apple Watches sold will reach 45.2 million by 2019, according to IDC’s report.

You have a gym membership, but you’ve talked yourself out of going. You paid for a personal trainer and found reasons to cancel.

Maybe fitness can be achieved through your smartphone or smartwatch, but the excuse that now grinds the revolution to a halt is too many apps from which to choose.

Freeletics, a workout app that made its U.S. debut earlier this month, wants to make this an easy choice. First, it invites you to join more than 7 million other users, a community, the company says, grows by more than 6,000 users a week.

Didn’t think the Apple Watch would catch on? Not everyone agrees, especially analysts who study sales projections.

Cupertino is on track to sell 21 million watches and rake in about $8.4 billion in revenue in the first 12 months of the Apple Watch, according to one of the hottest Apple analysts around. Not bad for a company that entered the wearables game late.

You have your reasons for not owning a smartwatch, one of which is you happen to like the timepiece presently on your wrist. What if you could make your primitive wristwatch a little smart?

Chronos is like slapping a brain on the back of your favorite timepiece. It is an ulna-thin disc with 36 hours of battery life that brings curated notifications and health tracking to a watch of any age.

Smartwatches have been around for a few years and as a must-have device, they haven’t quite caught on. Analysts say there are two barriers, price and people not seeing the advantage of owning one.

But a new report shows Apple is making a dent in at least one of those barriers. A survey of 11,000 people by Kantar US Insights shows 92 percent recognize the Apple brand more than any other brand. Fitbit came in second with 47 percent with Google and Samsung scoring in the low 30s.

With the watch now reinvented, a pair of avid runners believe it’s time to reinvent the watch band.

They have created a band that moves the face of a smartwatch to the spot on the hand just below where the thumb and forefinger meet. The result for runners, cyclists or anyone using the Apple Watch’s health tracking features is the face of the watch remains in the line of site.